Aurora: a conceptual model for Web-content adaptation to support the universal usability of Web-based services

Abstract

Users of the World Wide Web (Web) have a diverse set of needs, abilities, and goals. To achieve universal usability, the Web today calls for the development of new systems that enable the same content to be adapted for display according to these various needs. This paper presents Aurora, an extensible transcoding system that targets and adapts content in existing Web pages to help the broadest population of users, particularly in the disabled community, to obtain various Web-based services, such as auction, search engine, travel, etc. The system adapts Web content based on semantic rather than syntactic constructs—facilitating navigation by streamlining the Web interface according abstract user goals. In addition, it provides the capability to adapt this content to meet the specific needs of any number of user groups. This paper puts forth a conceptual abstraction, called the transaction model, for conceptually classifying Web data to meet these goals. It discusses how Aurora uses this model, through an XML-based framework, to semantically transcode existing Web content. The result is an alternative, adaptable Web interface that better supports universal usability.